Hobby Update 6/30/12

Finishing out the month strong with getting 10 more points painted:

eMadrak gets stomped, pMadrak goes stomping

So I devised what I considered a solid eMadrak list based on what I own.  Showed up at the FLGS last night and first game was a 15 point Team Game.  As I wasn't sure I would get more than 5 games in for the league, I wanted to make sure I played every game with a new, painted Warlock, so I brought eMadrak (though I probably should have brought out Calandra).

Game 1:

I was paired with a Cygnar player vs. my Arch-Nemesis playing Circle and his Cryx partner.

My list was eMadrak, Axer, Impaler, Mauler.  My idea here was to hopefully make some people unhappy with Madrak throwing his Axe, while the Axer and Mauler had fun.  My partner ran pNemo and 3 Ironclads.

Our Circle opponent brought eBaldur with Megalith and the Woldguardian, his partner played eSkarre, with Deathjack and a Leviathan.

The Cryx and Circle team played fairly aggressively, and myself and the Cygnar player were a bit more cautious in meeting their approach.  eSkarre's feat ruined our best turn to really do any damage, but I did trample my Mauler close enough to put pressure on eSkarre and eBaldur.  Baldur's beasts beat down my Impaler, so my Axer moved to about 1.5" from them so he was threatening both, trying to tie them up for a turn, as I could see that Deathjack was in an eBaldur forest, so there was no way he could charge eMadrak.

Unfortunately I didn't realize that rough terrain was only in play as long as eBaldur wanted it to be (for some reason I thought it stayed in play for 2 turns?), he removed the forest and Deathjack charged eMadrak, hit, and at Dice + 1 rolled a 17, doing 18; which forced a tough roll... that eMadrak failed.  The Cygnar player tried to mop up, but two one one was too much and he fell soon after.

Game 2:

Because I wanted more league points so I could FINALLY get my first upgrade, I convinced my Arch-Nemesis to play a quick 15pt game against me.

My list:

Chief Madrak Ironhide
* Pyre Troll
* Troll Impaler
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Trollkin Scouts (Leader and 5 Grunts)

I ran 1 point down, but I thought the Pyre Troll would be a nice addition in such a small point game.

Arch-Nemesis' list:

Kromac the Ravenous
* Warpwolf Stalker
Stoneward and 5 Woldstalkers
Blackclad Wayfarer
Druid Wilder


Deployment:

I set up my Fennblades centrally, with Madrak right in the middle of them, the Impaler and Pyre to their right.

He deployed Stalker centrally, Kromac behind him, and the Wilder nearby; he then put the Wayfarer and Woldstalkers to the left of the Madrak mini-brick.

I advance deployed the Scouts into a forest directly across from the Woldstalkers.

My turn 1:

Fennblades move up, Madrak moves up behind them and casts Sure Foot.  The Impaler and Pyre Troll move up.  The Scouts move up.

His turn 1:

Stalker warps for Prowl and runs into a Forest to the right of the mini-brick.  Everything else moves forward.

My turn 2:

Fennblades move up, Madrak upkeeps Sure Foot and walks forward, not yet in range of Kromac.  Scouts charge the Woldstalkers and Wayfarer, they don't get into melee range, but get their axe throw because of Assault.  They manage to kill one of the Woldstalkers and the Blackclad Wayfarer.

I was feeling pretty confident I could get the alpha strike on Kromac next turn, I would have the Fennblades pop their mini-feat and... oh, they don't have the UA, no mini-feat, I may need to re-examine my plans...

His turn 2:

His Woldstalkers Zephyr, and take some shots at the Scouts, they kill three, with the last Scout unharmed.  Warpwolf Stalker moves over directly in front of the Fennblades, but doesn't do anything else, Kromac moves forward a bit more, but plays it s a bit safe, keeping the Stalker between my Fennblades/Madrak and him, then casts Inviolable Resolve on the Woldstalkers and Wild Agression on the Stalker.  The Wayfarer moves up.  Woldstalkers Zephyr away and then start shooting the Scouts.  They end up getting 3 kills and 2 knocked down from successful Tough checks.

My turn 3:

Scouts make their morale check, Fennblades move up and fan out just enough to give Madrak LoS to the Stalker, Madrak upkeeps Sure Foot, walks forward and pops feat, then spends 3 Fury, 2 for Stranglehold and 1 to boost the Attack roll, but misses the Stalker, leaving Madrak with 1 Fury.  Under feat, the two knocked down scouts sacrifice their action and the unit advances, my hope here was that with Overtake & Gang I could get through a number of the Woldstalkers, unfortunately I don't kill any, as I roll a 3 for damage, 2 less than I needed to kill the Woldstalker and activate Overtake.

His turn 3:

Kromac upkeeps Wild Aggression, Woldstalkers Zephyr and kill 2 of the Scouts, leaving the last one knocked down on a successful Tough check.  Wilder uses Sprint on the Stalker, and the Stalker warps for Berserk and charges one of the Fennblade flanks.  He hits the first one, he Toughs, buys an attack, hits him again, kills him, Berserk attack the second one, and is then out of range of the rest, so he Sprints away.

The battle music plays as Kromac walks forward and Jumps into Melee range with Madrak.  Kromac has 6 Fury on him, is MAT 8 and gets two initial attacks.  He hits with the first attack, Madrak uses Scroll of Grindar's Perseverance to ignore it, missed his second attack, bought an attack, hit with it for 10 damage (which Madrak then transferred to the Pyre Troll) and then gets a string of misses and a single low damage hit.  By the time he is out of Fury, Madrak has taken three damage.  Kromac then feats, cuts himself for 7 and gets 7 Fury back, which he then proceeds to unleash against Madrak, however Dhunia smiled upon the Chieftain, and when Kromac had exhausted all of his attacks, Madrak stood defiantly with 2 Boxes left and 0 Fury.

My turn 4:

Madrak pulls 4 from his beasts, then cuts himself for 1; bringing him back to 5 Fury.  He boosts his first attack and lands Critical Grievous Wounds (though at this point it wasn't a big deal, Kromac had no Fury) and does some damage.  Buys another attack, boosts to hit, does some damage.  Buys a third attack, hits, boosts damage, and Kromac falls with his tail between his legs.

Wrap-Up:

Madrak should not have survived that assault, at DEF/ARM 16/16 with 18 boxes, ~42% of Kromac's unboosted attacks should have hit, doing ~5 damage per hit.  That means had the dice been average for my opponent, he would have need 4 unbooted attacks to hit for average damage.  Considering that 13 Fury was thrown into the assassination attempt, Kromac's player (Arch-Nemesis) got hosed by bad dice.

Pre-Game 6/28/12

As I sit here during my last few hours of work, I can almost here the drums outside the dull gray walls of my cube, calling me to something greater, calling me to WAR; or possibly just calling me to a cramped room with smelly dudes.

It's Thursday, and that means it is the one night I get to play WM/H (outside of random Menoth vs. Trollbloods games on my table at home).

This is Week 2 of the Thornwood League (and I am in last place with a single point!), and as much as I would like to play that Jarl list again, I need to get four games in over the next three weeks with different painted Warlocks.  Tonight I will be pulling out Epic Madrak (and insisting on League Scenario).

Any how, here is the list:

Madrak Ironhide, World Ender
* Dire Troll Bomber
* Dire Troll Mauler
Krielstone Bearer and 3 Stone Scribes
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer
Trollkin Scouts (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Fell Caller Hero


I should have no problem cracking High Armor with this list (my problem last week), and for High Defense I have the Bomber and two Beasts who can throw Fennblades/Scouts.  The Fennblades eat up board space, the Scouts are intended as a counter charge unit, and the Krielstone Bearer and Scribes will stick close to the middle of the bodies.  With 21 medium base Warrior Models on the field (besides Madrak), I should have plentiful Grim Salvation targets.

Hobby Update 6/27/12

Quick painting update, managed to get Madrak Ironhide, World-Ender (eMadrak, Madrak2) painted last night.  While there are certainly better painters out there, this is probably the best job I have done, and I am pretty satisfied with it!

Hobby Update 6/26/12

Although not Trolls, both will be used with them!

Alten Ashey:

and Maxwell Finn:

Hobby Update 6/25/12

Sluggers, as promised!

Hobby Update 6/24/12

Scouts are painted, based, and sealed!

Next up?  Trollkin Sluggers!

The Jaws of (Un)Life

So last night was the first night of the Thornwood League for me.  As I was driving to the FLGS, I realized that I was expecting about 50/50 Warmachine/Hordes breakdown (we have a fairly balanced group of players).  So I made a small adjustment to the League list, dropping the Skinner in favor of the Runebearer AKA Trollses.

We did not play a scenario, my opponent had his daughter with him (who not only rolled all his dice, but was rolling well!) so we just played a friendly game.

The list he brought was:


Maelok, the Dreadbound
* Bull Snapper
* Blackhide Wrastler
* Ironback Spitter
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts)
Spellstarved Thrullg (League Model)


He won the roll, but opted to go second, so I deployed first.  I put Maxwell Finn and the Sluggers on my left flank.  Jarl, the Mauler, Impaler, Trollses, and Krielstone Bearer + UA were deployed a little more centrally, with the Secluded Savage to their right, looking to punish anything that came in.  The Scouts and Chronicler decided to attempt an extreme flanking maneuver to my right.

My opponent deployed most of his units dead center with a unit of Posse leading the way, trailed by the Wrastler and Spitter.  Thrullg was deployed on my opponent's right (my left) facing the Sluggers.


My turn one:


The Scouts activated and advanced, then the Chronicler brought up the back and gave them Concealment (which does not trigger Prowl unfortunately).  Maxwell Finn ran forward, and now in LoS of all the Sluggers, they charged him (using Relentless Charge) to setup in some Rough Terrain.  The Mauler moved cautiously forward, wary of threat ranges on the Posse facing him, the Impaler came up and put Far Strike on Jarl.  Jarl moved forward (keeping charge lanes blocked) cast Magic Bullet and shot a Posse member, failed to kill him, Magic Bullet'ed the same model, STILL failed to kill him, took his second shot and finally managed to drop him.  Stone moved up and popped aura (+STR as I did not realize the Spitter caused Corrosion).



His turn one:


I learned two very important lessons:

1. The Spitter causes Corrosion!
2. I had SERIOUSLY underestimated the threat ranges on his Posse.

He activated Maelok, through out some buffs and Revives his destroyed Posse Member, after which the Spitter moved up, boosted to hit, and launched his AoE on the Krielstone Bearer (catching the Bearer and 2 Scribes).  AoE killed 1 of the Scribes, Bearer and the second Scribe lived, but had the Corrosion effect on them.  His next move was to charge the Mauler with the first Posse group, but only three make it into Melee (the second Posse group was keeping my Scouts in check; not wanting to charge in, but keeping the Scouts from having juicy targets).  Snapper also puts his animus on Maelok.

Mauler takes some damage, but doesn't lose any aspects.

My turn two:

Stonebearer survives Corrosion (but it does not go away), final Scout dies; Command test is passed.  Jarl activates first, sacs his Movement, pops the left Gatorman Posse on the Mauler, take a 2" step and puts 5 boxes on the right Posse member.  Mauler activates, picks up the center Gatorman Posse member (who has 1 health, he was the Revived one), and throws him at the right Posse member.  My intent here was that the Mauler would kill the one he was throwing, if the second one survived, it was no longer "In Melee" so the Impaler could finish it off.  I ended up killing the the right Posse member and the thrown one survived.  Mauler buys an attack, killed the center Posse member and eats him, then forces to Regenerate.  Impaler walks up, launches a spear at another Posse member, kills him, and is out of range for the other two.

At this point it was time to see what the Sluggers could do.  They could see Finn still, so they were a RAT 7, they sac'd their Movement and aimed, bringing the 5 of them to a D3 shots, now at RAT 9 versus the remaining 2 Posse members.  3 were in range of Posse Member 4, and 1 + Finn were in range of Posse Member 5.  Shots did not go as well as you would have expected based on averages.  I managed to kill Posse member 5, but left #4 with 1 box, which meant...


His turn two:


Snapper frenzies and hits Maelok for 4.  Maelok moves up, and revives a Posse member from the forward unit.  He throws Death Pact on the Wrastler, who moves up again, but does not get into range on anything.  The forward Posse unit charges again, this time one going at the Impaler and the other going after the Secluded Savage.  They kill the Savage and put some hurt on the Imapler.

2nd Posse/Scouts continue to have their standoff.  I am just outside of his range, but if he moves toward those Scouts they will counter-charge next turn.  Bull Snapper puts his animus on Maelok and the Spitter, well, spits.  He hits the Impaler, does some solid damage and kills him.


My turn three:


Stonebearer succumbs to Corrosion.  At this point I have lost one of my two beasts and I have Posse members in my grill with a Wrastler coming behind them.  The Posse member that killed the Impaler is close enough to the Mauler that he can't charge the Wrastler without taking a free strike, and he is still hurt enough that I am concerned a good damage roll will end him, so instead he eats that Posse member and gets his d3 back.

Finn activates and realizes Thrullg is nice and close.  He sac's movement, and gets 2 shots that turn, which is all it takes to remove Thrullg.  The Sluggers follow suit, all targeting the Wrastler, and despite getting a large number of shots, are at Dice minus 8 for damage.  They drops some 1s and 2s on him but don't do anything substantial.  Jarl casts Magic Bullet on himself, shoots at the final Posse member from the front group, misses, shoots again and misses.  At that point he buys two more attacks for 1 Fury and misses for a third time in a row, finally hitting (and killing) the Gator.  He moves 2" away from the Wrastler and pops feat.

So it turns out I didn't know how Cloud Effects and targeting worked.  I centered my clouds on models I wanted to protect, but then found out that if they are in the cloud they are targetable, the clouds only block LOS from one side of it to the other.  Live (or don't) and learn.


His turn three:


Bull Snapper makes a Frenzy check, fails, and charges Maelok in the back doing 14 damage; Maelok transfers to that same Snapper.  Maelok pops feat, puts Death Pact on himself, and moves forward.
Wrastler charges the Mauler, and drops him on the first hit.  Second Gatorman Posse runs from the back of my opponent's half to mid-table.

Everything else is too far away/does not have LOS, so his turn ends.


My turn four:


Jarl moves forward and cuts himself for 4 to bring himself to full, hoping to end Maelok (who is down to 1 Fury).  At this point, Maelok is DEF 14/ARM 21 with 13 Boxes on him still.  Based on averages, Jarl's best option (at Dice minus 9) was to hope to land 4 shots, with 3 of those Boosted, doing an average of 4 damage.  I don't remember the exact numbers, but things worked out a bit better, Maelok had ~7 boxes left.  The Sluggers move forward and take 1 shot each at Dice -8, but they could not close the deal.  The Scouts charged Maelok (who was out of range), but got their Assault throw, only two were in dange, but at Dice minus 10 they couldn't put any boxes on him.


His turn five:


Wrastler charges Jarl, Jarl fails his Tough roll.


Thoughts:
I made some pretty big mistakes in this game.  That said, I think I learned from all of them.  I was playing a bit too conservatively, part of that is because most of my experience being with Calandra, and the other part is probably missing my 12 Fennblades between the enemy and my caster.

This was also my first game against Blindwater, so there was a lot of things that I did not expect (which I enjoy) and I think next time I would be more prepared for some of the things that caught me offguard.  Running those Scouts up the flank was good and bad.  On one hand, they tied up a 9pt unit for literally the entire game, but that was 7 points committed to doing that (Scouts + Chronicler).  If I had kept them closer to home, they could have laid down a bit of smack between Gang, the +1 Str from the Krielstone UA.  That would have given them an Assault throw at POW14, and a followup Melee Charge attack at P+S14.  I don't know how things would have changed, but I feel like they would have earned more than 5 points of tradeoff.

Finally, the table had no Forests.  This list is not a permanent list, but I wrote it based on the Thornwood Fluff/Scenarios, and when not playing them, all of the Camouflage and Prowl was wasted.

Moving Forward:
I wasn't a huge fan of the Runebearer, which is to really say, I was not a fan of how I played him.  I didn't do any Quicken shenanigans or anything like that.  All that said, I think versus Hordes I will probably bring out Alten Ashey, and keep Trollses in there for vs. Warmachine.

Pre-Game 6/21/12

So as I have said before, I hate fielding unpainted models; unfortunately I could not pick up my Scouts, Sluggers, and Maxwell Finn until today.  So think of this as a "Pre" picture, something you can compare the paint jobs to.

Hobby Update 6/21/2012

My involvement in the FLGS Thornwood League starts tonight, and while I really hate putting unpainted models on the table, I won't have my Scouts, Sluggers, or Maxwell Finn until much later today.  That said, I was able to paint up my Dire Troll Mauler:

This means, that while I won't be able to field a fully painted army tonight, Jarl's battlegroup is complete:

Hobby Update 6/19/12

Just a quick hobby update, I received Jarl Skuld, Devil of the Thornwood yesterday, and painted him up in preparation for my first Thornwood League game on Thursday.

As you start to see stuff I paint, you will quickly see that I am a "tabletop quality" painter.  That doesn't mean I don't try, just that I lack the skill at this time.  Regardless, I feel that Jarl is a step up from my earlier painting attempts, and I am happy with how he came out.

Service Shoutout

If you read my post about my Thornwood Theme list, I needed to purchase Jarl Skuld, but the FLGS did not have him in stock.  As an avid Chain Attack listener, I decided to give Discount Games Inc. a try.  I placed my order on Friday 6/15 morning, and received Jarl yesterday, Monday 6/18.

That was awesome, if you can't find what you need at the FLGS, I suggest giving them a try!

Sacrificial Pwn

So like most players in a miniature wargame, I have a mortal enemy good friend who plays.  He is mainly playing Circle at this point, and I have managed to take down eKruegar, pBaldur, and Morvhanna.  My most recent kill was Morvhanna, who fell to a multi-wound eGrissel list, with Grissel herself pulling off the assassination.

Upon review of the game, we realized that Morvhanna had not used Sacrificial Pawn once, so we obviously needed a rematch.  To say that the eGrissel game was close is not doing justice to the wall I was up against when I pulled out the win.  Either way, I decided that I would bring "The Calandra List", I swapped out my Axer for a full unit of Burrowers and hit the table:

I was staring down the following:

Morvahna the Autumnblade
* Warpwolf Stalker
* Woldguardian
Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts)
* Druid of Orboros Overseer
Shifting Stones
Tharn Bloodtrackers (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Nuala the Huntress
Gallows Grove

The game started off with an early kill on two of the Fennblades, so like always, this magical moment made me giddy.  I took their Vengeance move, popped their Mini-Feat, and charged in.  They inflicted some heavy casualties upon the Bloodtrackers, killing Nuala and 5 grunts, as well as putting some heavy damage on the Warpwolf Stalker.  It was at this point that my opponent got his "magical moment", and through Regrowth brought back the 5 grunts, in formation behind my Fennblades.

Fennblades managed to stave off some of the attacks, as even with their Weapon Master throws, the Bloodtrackers were Dice minus 7 (thanks Krielstone!); however quite a few fell.  My opponent then made good use of the Warpwolf Stalker wiping out the rest of the unit save one grunt and the drummer.

Got a Vengeance swing, but it didn't do much.  Burrowers popped up and advanced, but he had screened Morvhanna pretty well, the Burrowers took down some Druids, but all shots on Morvhanna either missed or fell short; they were slaughtered shortly after.  Bomber moved in to position to drop some barrels on Morvhanna, however my opponent had pulled his Shifting Stones in tight to Morvhanna, allowing him to Sac Pawn the barrels to them.

Back on my side of the board, those Bloodtrackers were coming after Calandra hard, however the combination of Bullet Dodger + Star Crossed kept her in the game for a few turns (and my opponent swearing off WM/H forever ;) ), but at the end of the day, too much had been lost without enough taken down, and Morvhanna's Bloodtrackers finally made a charge on Calandra (denying her the Bullet Dodger +DEF bonus) and ended the game.

Wrap-up thoughts:  I should have realized that Regrowth was going to ruin my day, if I had dropped some barrels on the Bloodtrackers before the Fennblade charge, I think I could have dropped that entire unit.  If they had gone down I feel the game would have probably ended differently, but you never know, and that is why I love this game.

If you would like more information on the Circle player, you can check out his blog here.

Thornwood League

So the FLGS is running a Thornwood League starting 6/18/2012.  For those who haven't seen the info on the League, here is the relevant PP page:

http://privateerpress.com/organized-play/leagues/thornwood

Now that the link is out of the way, on to the meat and potatoes of this post.  I looked at these league rules and I saw a great reason to try out one of the most maligned units in the Trollblood lineup, the Trollkin Sluggers.

To get the most out of these guys, they need to be relatively immobile.  The get d3 attacks (and their aiming bonus of course) if they sacrifice their movement.  When considering that in a vacuum, that is pretty solid.  The concern comes from the fact that if they do need to move, their RAT is kinda low (they are Trollkin after all) and they now only get 1 attack.  Not terrible, but at 8 points for 5 of them, there is an issue there.

Enter Thornwood League, or more importantly:

Captain Maxwell Finn, Thornwood Survivor.  Max here normally only plays for Cygnar, but for Thornwood he will work for Trollbloods as well as Cygnar.  Not only does he bring a solid Ranged Solo to the table (something Trolls lack), but he gives the guys above Camouflage, Relentless Charge (Pathfinder Charges help when they do need to move), and +2 RAT.  While he may be 3 points, I feel that what he adds to the Sluggers, plus himself, is well worth 11 points.

We also get a nifty alternate Trollkin Champion Hero, the "Secluded Savage" we can field.  He trades in Relentless Charge, Tactician, and Thresher for Camouflage, Killing Spree and Pathfinder.  I think all in all this is a solid trade.  If you are taking Champions, you probably want the stock Champ Hero, but if you are not, I think this is a friendlier Melee Solo who now doesn't need to worry about hitting his own boys in that 2" melee range.

All that is a lead-up to this, I like Theme Armies (note that I did not say "Tier Lists"), so I wrote up a Theme Army for the League.  I do intend to use 5 different Warlocks to get that Commendation (Borka, Calandra, eGrissel, Jarl and pMadrak); but this will be my list for the other games (and the Commendation Jarl game) that I will be playing:

Jarl Skuld, Devil Of Thornwood

* Troll Impaler

* Dire Troll Mauler

Krielstone Bearer and 3 Stone Scribes

* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder

Trollkin Scouts (Leader and 5 Grunts)

Trollkin Sluggers (Leader and 4 Grunts) 

Stone Scribe Chronicler

Trollblood Skinner

Secluded Savage 

Captain Maxwell Finn, Thornwood Survivor

We'll see how it goes, first game will probably be in a week (waiting on models to arrive).

The "Calandra List"

Undoubtedly, you will hear me report that I "used my Calandra list" as it is my primary list for casual gaming. For reference here it is:

Calandra Truthsayer, Oracle of the Glimmerwood
* Troll Axer
* Troll Impaler
* Dire Troll Bomber
Krielstone Bearer and 3 Stone Scribes
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer
Fell Caller Hero
Janissa Stonetide

I feel that it has a strong Offensive game against middle defense and middle armor while offering some solutions for either.  As with any Calandra list, her Fate Blessed special rule and Feat help to overcome issues with high Defense and high Armor, though like with most Trollblood players, I prefer fighting high Armor over high Defense.

Depending on my mood, that Axer may morph into Horthol or a full unit of Dygmies, but more often than not, it is the Axer I take.

Intro

I will keep this short, just as a reference point.  I started playing Warmahordes right after MKII dropped, and still have a soft spot in my heart for a terrible Reznik list I used to run.

After taking a break from Menoth (for reasons I will drone on about some other time), I came back to the game post Wrath, picking up a sizable Trollblood army (currently sitting just shy of 150pts).  This blog will detail my adventure through the FURY side of the game, as I am enjoying Trolls quite a bit more than I did Menoth.

For reference, I have been playing Trollbloods since late March 2012.  At the time of this post, my record stands at 6-5-0, with 1 win being a Scenario Win, and the rest being Caster Kills.  All losses were Caster Kills.